Gaming Commission names three for siting board

A few days beyond Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s timeline, the New York Gaming Commission has its siting board set up to begin the chore of putting out bids for casino developers.

The commission named three-fifths of the Resort Gaming Facility Location Board and the remaining two are expected to be announced soon, said commission spokesman Lee Park.

All the panelists are arriving from Cuomo’s appointments on the gaming commission because the Legislature has failed to even nominate anyone for their two seats.

The siting board, which Cuomo wanted to be created last month, will include Paul Francis, who has served several governors and was the state’s budget director under Gov. Eliot Spitzer. He was featured in a Times Union profile last year. The commission is also expected to name a consultant soon that will help evaluate bidders. All the bids are supposed to be disclosed on the the commission Web site and siting board meetings are supposed to be open to the public.

Here’s the full press release:

The New York State Gaming Commission today announced that it will appoint the first three individuals to serve on the Resort Gaming Facility Location Board, the body that will be responsible for evaluating casino applications and making selections of who is eligible to apply for a commercial gaming license in New York State.

The three recommendations, Paul Francis, Stuart Rabinowitz and Bill Thompson, will be formally appointed at the Commission’s next meeting. Pursuant to the Upstate New York Gaming and Economic Development Act (Chapters 174 and 175 of the Laws of 2013), the Commission is responsible for appointing five members to the Resort Gaming Facility Location Board.

“These individuals have the expertise, objectivity and knowledge of New York State to evaluate the applications to operate destination resort casinos,” said Chairman-Designate Mark Gearan. “I thank them for their commitment to bringing much-needed economic development, revenue and jobs to Upstate New York.”

The members of the Gaming Facility Location Board will be:

Paul Francis, Business Executive, Founder and Managing Partner of Cedar Street Group, LLC: Paul Francis is a business executive with more than 25 years of private sector experience and has served as a senior policy advisor and appointee under three consecutive New York State governors. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Guarini Center on Environmental and Land Use Law at NYU Law School. Mr. Francis came to public service in 2007 as Budget Director for Gov. Eliot Spitzer after serving for two years as a policy adviser to the Spitzer campaign. In 2008, Spitzer made him Director of State Operations, overseeing all state agencies. He kept that post under Gov. David Paterson until stepping down at the conclusion of the 2008 session for the role of Chief Operating Officer for Bloomberg L.P.’s Financial Products Division. In December 2010, Governor Andrew Cuomo named Mr. Francis the State Director of Agency Redesign and Efficiency, a new post, and installed him as Chairman of the Spending and Government Efficiency Commission (SAGE). Mr. Francis retired from state employment in 2013. Mr. Francis’ private jobs have included chief financial officer at Ann Taylor and Priceline.com. Francis is the founder of venture capital firm Cedar Street Group and also served as managing director at Merrill Lynch. He graduated from Yale College and New York University School of Law in 1980 and worked for Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. He resides in Westchester County.

“Mr. Francis’ distinguished experience in both the private and public sector is a commodity that is vital to the siting process,” said Chairman-Designate Gearan.

Stuart Rabinowitz, President, Hofstra University: Stuart Rabinowitz is the eighth president of Hofstra University, selected by the Board of Trustees in December 2000. Prior to his appointment, he served as dean of the Hofstra University School of Law from September 1989 through June 2001. He joined the faculty of the Law School in 1972. President Rabinowitz has held positions with a number of government and community organizations, including the Judicial Advisory Council of the State of New York Unified Court System, County of Nassau. He currently serves as a member of the board of directors for the Long Island Association and as co-vice chair of the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council. He has also served as a trustee of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities and on the board of directors of the Long Island Technology Network. He is a former member of the Nassau County Blue Ribbon Financial Review Panel, former chair of the Nassau County Local Advisory Board and a member of the Nassau County Commission on Government Revision, which was charged with drafting a new charter and a new form of government for the County. President Rabinowitz received a juris doctor, magna cum laude, from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a member of the board of editors of the Columbia Law Review and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He graduated from the City College of New York with honors, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Law Institute.

“President Rabinowitz has long been a strong advocate for community interests in proposed casino siting plans, and he brings a valuable perspective to the Board,” said Chairman-Designate Gearan.

William C. Thompson, Jr., Chief Administrative Officer and Senior Managing Director at Siebert Brandford Shank & Company L.L.C.: Mr. Thompson served as the Comptroller for the City of New York from January 2002 to December 2009, where he was custodian and investment advisor to the $100 billion-plus New York City Pension Funds. In this role, Mr. Thompson invested hundreds of millions of dollars in affordable housing and commercial real estate in New York City. During his tenure, Mr. Thompson also worked with leaders of the financial services industry to reform the operations of the New York Stock Exchange and spearheaded the City’s innovative Banking Development District program. Mr. Thompson also served as a Senior Vice President in Public Finance in the mid-1990s. He joined Siebert Brandford Shank & Company, L.L.C., the largest minority- and women-owned municipal bond underwriter in the country in 2010. Prior to his work as Comptroller, he had served as Brooklyn Deputy Borough President and as a Member and five-term President of the New York City Board of Education. Mr. Thompson is from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn and graduated from Tufts University in 1974. He resides in Harlem.

“Mr. Thompson brings to the Board a lifetime of demonstrated leadership and financial management experience that is essential,” said Chairman-Designate Gearan.

The Facility Location Board’s primary duty is to select not more than four gaming facility license applicants through a competitive process to be located in the Catskills/Hudson Valley Region, the Eastern Southern Tier and the Capital Region. In particular, the Facility Location Board will:

· Work with the Commission to develop the application form

· Determine a gaming facility license fee

· Develop the criteria to assess which applications provide the highest and best value to the state, zone and region

· Determine the sources and total amount of an applicant’s proposed capitalization to develop, construct, maintain and operate a proposed gaming facility

As mandated in the Act, Board members must possess ten or more years of responsible experience in fiscal matters, plus significant service:

· As an accountant economist, or financial analyst experienced in finance or economics

· In an academic field relating to finance or economics

· In the field of commercial real estate

· As an executive with fiduciary responsibilities in charge of a large organization or foundation

Board Members must be residents of New York and cannot be elected officials. Additionally, they cannot:

· Have a close familial or business relationship to a person that holds a license under the Racing Law

· Have any direct or indirect financial interest, ownership, or management, including holding any stocks, bonds, or other similar financial interests in any gaming activities, including horse racing, lottery or gambling

· Receive or share in, directly or indirectly, the receipts or proceeds of any gaming activities, including horse racing, lottery or gambling

· Have a beneficial interest in any contract for the manufacture or sale of gaming devices, the conduct of any gaming activity, or the provision of any independent consulting services in connection with any licensed establishment

In addition, the Gaming Commission has determined that Facility Location Board Members should reside outside of the eligible casino zones.

“The requirements for appointment to the Gaming Facility Location Board are intentionally strict in order to ensure that only the best individuals are selected and that integrity is paramount throughout the entire siting process,” said Chairman-Designate Gearan. “These individuals meet or exceed the criteria set forth in the law, and we look forward to assisting them as they begin their important work.”

The Gaming Facility Location Board members, who receive no compensation other than expenses incurred in carrying out their duties, will commence work promptly and expect to issue the Request for Applications in March 2014.

A statutorily mandated outside consultant to provide the Gaming Facility Location Board members with analysis of the gaming industry and assist with the comprehensive review and evaluation of the applications will be selected in the very near future.

13 Responses

Allow me to suggest again the Clinton County region, near Plattsburgh, to attract money from Canadian gamblers rather than recirculating money bet by New Yorkers. Likewise, in Sullivan County, another casino style spa to revitalize consumer interest in the “old borsht belt” a favorite of people from metropolitan New York for several generations. Then , of course, there is the Lake George region, which attracts visitors from all over during the warm weather months plus skiers in the heart of winter. And, lastly, out on Long Island where 4,000,000 New Yorkers live without access to any legal gambling what so ever. Perhaps out in the Mystic Beach area.

Just get it out – that is ridiculous and wildly unfair. I’m not overly thrilled that we still sell gaming systems that take up hours of every day from our children and I’m certainly not in favor yet another flavor of soda that will further deteriorate our future base (and neither one of these is exclusively children).

But I would never stoop so low as to call the guy at Best Buy or Price Chopper heroin dealers because they sell this crack to anyone that wants it.

Government doesn’t create “morally or outright bankrupt citizens.” The individual person does that, unless you don’t believe in the concept of personal responsibility, and attribute all failings to outside forces and absolve the person of any responsibility for his/her actions. Gambling, drugs, alcohol, smoking, et al, are everywhere, but it is the individual who makes the choice to partake in them or not, and has to take the consequences of abusing them. A concept becoming rarer everyday in our “nanny state.”

These appointments may look like a pander on diversity, but as usual, no geographic balance. Downstate politicians and lawyers will have the majority on the commission, and will decide where upstate casinos are sited.

Whatever you think of casino gambling I don’t think the state, and my taxpayer dollars, should be in the business of promoting it and forcing it down the throats of local communities that don’t want it. I find it hard to believe that we can’t find better investments to make with state money and effort than to promote gambling.

You miss my point, entirely. Which is that government should not be in the business of encouraging the kinds of behavior that lead to moral (or real) bankruptcy among its citizens. Casinos do just that – they rend the social fabric of society, because some individuals are predisposed to gambling; casinos know this, because they derive the most significant part of their revenues from PROBLEM gamblers. Should government be aiding and abetting that? Of course not – but that is exactly what it is doing. Hence my analogy to someone selling heroin and then using the proceeds to say, send their kid to Williams College. You wouldn’t condone that; why would you condone an analogous situation on the scale of government?

Revenue should derive from activities which, in the end, create a healthy, just, productive society – not from those which snooker and prey on the hapless or gambling-addiction prone members of society.

Let’s tax productive industries, not ones that encourage the worst behavior in us, which, sadly, lurks just beneath the surface. Government doesn’t need to “feed” those urges by building the means (casinos) that bring those urges to the surface, and help them thrive. In the final analysis, casinos do nothing but systematically siphon the capital of a community away from the community and into corporate and government coffers. Is that what you Tea Party-ers want to see? Of course not.

casinos do not create wealth- they create addicts. only a few handpicked cuomo cronies will become fabulously rich from his little pet project- a “giant sucking sound” of hard earned cash being funneled from upstate to NYC. we already have plenty of “racinos”, and they are tight as hell with payouts (i occasionally play video poker with 20 bucks, i know). you have to know you enter at your own peril. this was not a “jobs bill”, it is a scam to further bloat the governor’s unbridled control, and idiot voters bought it.

NYS should not be in the business of promoting gambling. Those that have an addictive tendencies or emotional connection to gambling will certainly not benefit from the temptation. Not sure why some say casino gambling will create jobs and economic opportunity…just look at all the benefits it has done in gambling locations in the US. Casinos in NYS will benefit corporations that own them and the State via revenues as well as a few friends who will get large checks, otherwise the workers will get low pay.

What the statistics DON”T show is the carnage the casinos create. The people that MOST frequent these places are the least able and irresponsible type. Children and families are the big losers here. They get devastated by the fact that the small amount of money coming into the household, gets lost at the casinos, and its an addiction as strong as any opiate. “Ruined lives = Ruined communities” They hide those spread sheets